By these means you see the Angles and Saxons were ruled by laws that they helped to make themselves. And when they did wrong, they were not punished till some of their own wisest men found out that they really deserved punishment; and this is what I mean when I tell you that they were a free people, and that they loved freedom.
CHAPTER IX.
How Egbert became the first king over all England; how the Danes did great mischief to the people; how Alfred after much trouble drove them away, and how he built ships and did many other good things.
You have not forgotten, I hope, that there were seven chief kingdoms of the Angles and Saxons in England. Now, there were many and long wars between these kingdoms; and also with the Britons who were left in the land. Sometimes one king, and sometimes another, made himself more powerful than all the rest. He was then called Bretwalda, which means “Ruler over Britain”; for the English still called the whole island Britain. At last, 827 years after our Saviour’s birth, the king of Wessex (that is, of the West Saxons) got himself the power over all the other kings. He was called Egbert. He was very wise, and very brave, and very handsome; so the people loved him very much, and were very sorry when he died. His son and then three of his grandsons reigned after him, whose names you will learn another time.
While these men were kings, some very strong and cruel heathens, called Danes, came to England, in larger and better ships than the first Saxons came in, and they robbed the people, and burnt the towns, and did more mischief than I can tell you.
I do not know what would have become of England, if a very wise and good king had not begun to rule England about that time. His name was Alfred. He was the grandson of King Egbert, and was as handsome and as brave as Egbert.
But I must tell you a great deal about King Alfred, which I am sure you will like to hear.
When he was a very little boy, his mother wished him to learn to read, and she used to show him beautiful pictures in a book of Saxon poems, and to tell him what the pictures were about. Little Alfred was always pleased when the time came for seeing the book; and one day, when his mother was talking to him, she said that she would give him the book for his own, to keep, as soon as he could read it. Then he went to his teacher, and very soon learned to read the book, and his mother gave him the beautiful book. When he grew bigger he learned the old Saxon songs by heart, and sang them to his mother, who loved to hear Alfred sing, and play the harp.
But when Alfred grew up he had other things to do than reading and singing, for a long time. I told you that the Danes had done a great deal of mischief before Alfred was king; and indeed at the beginning of his reign they went on doing quite as much, and he had more than fifty battles to fight, before he could drive them away from his kingdom.
